


Casual Encounters and Missed Connections (Or, The Origin of Craig's List)

by hazelwho



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Last Night (1998)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:15:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelwho/pseuds/hazelwho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She says her name is Starbuck, and that she's a fighter pilot. He's not sure if he believes her, but he is absolutely certain that he doesn't really care if she is lying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Casual Encounters and Missed Connections (Or, The Origin of Craig's List)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ride_Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ride_Forever/gifts).



> Ride, I hope you like this. You said Last Night and c6d cross-overs and this is where my brain went. Happy Midsummer! <3
> 
> HUGE thanks to akamine_chan, who is an absolutely amazing beta. She makes everything better.
> 
> Uh, tags. Okay. So there is no on-screen sex, but there is mention of all kinds of sex, including pegging. Also, the world is ending (Last Night 'verse), but this isn't overly angsty?

The first thing Craig does after the announcement is hook up with a friend of his. He thought it would be _fuck it, we're all gonna die_ sex, no holds barred. But Sarah had started _crying_ in the middle, and instead of anything-goes, no-strings sex, there was clinging and cuddling and more crying the morning after. Craig isn't equipped to deal with tears and questions about the randomness of life and the meaning of death.

Worse, she calls him every day. He only ever makes it through the first few seconds of each message before hitting delete. He can't quite work up the courage to call her back and just tell her that he's really not looking to find love one last time before it all goes away. She seems to get the picture though; she stops calling after two weeks. He makes a rule after that: only strangers. No more friends, not until the _very_ end, at least.

* * *

He meets her at a bar. Well. He sees her on his way back from the men's room. She's not at the bar, sipping a fruity drink, looking for companionship. She's in a corner table strewn with half-empty plastic baskets of fried food and playing cards. She's got short blonde hair and is wearing cargo pants and a black tank top that stretches across her impressive shoulders. She has her feet up on the table, looking like she owns the place. Looking like she'd just _love_ it if you tried to kick her out. She's smoking a cigar and she's got a glass of whiskey in front of her. There are two other glasses at the table, but there are no sign of her friends now. Not that she'd need the back up. Jesus, she could probably take any guy in this bar in a fistfight. There is _nothing_ soft about her; she's not like any woman he's ever known before.

Craig knows he's out of his depth, but he puts on his best smile and heads over anyway.

"Hi, I'm Craig," he tries. She laughs.

"Sorry. Sorry for laughing, it's just…it's the end of –" she waves her cigar around to indicate everything, "—and some things never change."

She tucks her cigar back in her mouth and offers her hand. She says her name is Starbuck, and that she's a fighter pilot. He's not sure if he believes her, but he is absolutely certain that he doesn't really care if she is lying.

Two men return to the table with a pitcher of beer, and, yeah, okay, maybe she is a fighter pilot. The two men look like poster boys for the military and are wearing the same cargo pants and tank tops she is. They are both tall and well-muscled, one with dark curly hair and one with lighter, wavier hair. _They_ look like they belong with this beautiful, dangerous woman.

"Who's this, Kara?" the taller one asks.

"This is Craig. He wants to fuck me."

Craig manages not to make a sound, but he knows his eyes are wide with shock. He can't believe she just said that, and he's afraid of what the newcomers will do about it. He shifts into a what he hopes is a fighting stance, trying to be ready for whatever's coming next, but the two men just laugh.

"You gonna let him?" 

Starbuck downs the whiskey in her glass, grabs her jacket and gets up. "Maybe. Or maybe I'll fuck him."

Craig knows he's lost control of the situation, of the entire night, but can't bring himself to care as they walk out into the parking lot.

"This you?" she asks when he stops in front of the Buick.

"Yeah. You like classics?"

She smiles like he's said something funny, but she doesn't let him in on the joke as she gets in the car. It's only a few blocks to his apartment, but the silence weighs on Craig, makes him nervous. Things like this don't just _happen_ to him, and he's waiting for the catch.

The first thing she says after stepping in to his apartment is, "I want a drink. Do you have drinks?"

He pours them each a tumbler of scotch and hands one over. They clink glasses and Craig smiles. The grin he gets in return is a predator's smile. Starbuck drains her glass and walks toward the bedroom, shedding her jacket along the way. She doesn't look back, not even once, but she doesn't have to. Of course Craig is following her.

She fucks him like they're _dying_ , and – for the first time – he thinks maybe they are.

She's loud and laughing and dangerous and challenging and _passionate_ in a way that Craig's never experienced before, with anyone. She's a supernova, burning up everything she touches, flaring bright and fleeting, fighting the cold and the emptiness.

Afterward, she puts on her underwear and his shirt and walks back into the living room. Craig lies sweating and panting for another few minutes, bruised and sore. When he can move his limbs again, he finds her sitting on his couch, holding another glass of scotch.

"There's great light from that window. You should paint something on this wall."

"Paint _on_ the wall?"

"Why the hell not? It's not like you're getting your security deposit back."

Craig is taken aback for a moment while he processes that. Yeah, no, he is never getting his security deposit back. He is the last person who will ever live here. This is the last place he will ever live. It's still sinking in when Starbuck starts talking again.

"Some of my best work is the stuff I've been painting on my living room wall since the announcement. It's…freeing." She shakes her head and that shark's smile returns. "So, what are you going to paint on your wall?"

Craig thinks about Patrick's living room, about pictures painted by other people's children for a woman who isn't there to look at them any more. 

"No paintings."

She tilts her head and looks at him. He doesn't know what she sees, but instead of the teasing he's expecting, she lets it go. "Okay then, what else. Make a list, maybe?"

He huffs out a small laugh. "What, write my shopping list out on my kitchen wall?"

"A to-do list, then."

"Like 'Climb Mount Logan'?" 

"I was thinking more like 'fuck a fighter pilot'." 

Craig smiles his own sort of predatory grin. "How about, 'fuck in the backseat of the Buick'?"

"Nah. You've already done that, I'm sure. This is a goddamn bucket list. You're going to need to get kinkier than that."

He raises an eyebrow at her.

"If you're going to be going, you may as well be coming," she says, throwing him off balance again.

He wipes his palms on his pants, shrugs, and tries for casual. "Maybe…Maybe that thing. That you said. At the bar."

She stares at him and he hates how naked he feels, but he _cannot_ look away. She walks over to his desk, unabashed to be nearly naked in front of the window, and starts opening drawers. She holds up a black Sharpie marker.

"You want the list in here?"

"In the kitchen, I think. Less likely to be seen by a casual visitor."

His courage returns and he leads the way through the beige plantation doors into his underused kitchen. She turns around, surveying her canvas, and then picks a spot right next to the doorway.

She reaches up over her head, writes _SEXUAL Fantasies_ in large blocky letters and draws a box around it. Underneath, she prints _getting fucked by a woman_ and passes the marker over to him. Craig hesitates for a moment, and then adds _blow job in a rain storm_ and _sex with a pregnant woman_ to the list, and it gets easier from there. He's on his knees hunched over writing _gagged and tied down_ on his kitchen wall when he comes back to himself and realizes all of this is pouring out of him in front of a complete stranger.

He looks up, unsure what she'll say, but Starbuck just nods approvingly. She takes the marker from him, draws a clean line through the first entry on his list, and pulls him up.

"You got anything to use, or are we going to have to get creative?" 

He doesn't even pretend not to know what she means. "My ex, she left a dildo. It's in a box of her crap under the bed."

"I can work with that." And there's that sharp fucking _smile_ of hers again.

"Starbuck—"

"Kara," she interrupts. "When we do this, you call me Kara."


End file.
